The New Zealand Institute has just released a report calling on NZ businesses to adopt three key behaviours in order to increase international success:

• Be customer oriented – too often Kiwi companies build what they want and values, rather than what their potential customers want and value.
• Be collaborative – we’re not good enough at building strong partnerships with directors, specialist managers, international partners, investors, advisors etc – we’re too self-reliant.
• Be prepared – “she’ll be right” doesn’t cut it in the big bad world.

For more info, read the report, or view the presentation.

New Zealand and Singapore angel investors have signed a land-mark partnership between the Angel Association of New Zealand and the Business Angel Network (South East Asia) which will assist both countries in the development of globally successful exporting companies.

Angel Association Chair Andrew Hamilton says the partnership is highly valuable for New Zealand as it will open up networks into South East Asia for our emerging global companies, both in terms of networks for investment and market access.

“With our trading links to South East Asia expanding with the signing of the free trade agreement with Asean, it is the right time to be expanding our investment links.

“Angel investment is a key asset class in economies, with European research showing that angel backed companies today, will represent 50% of the new jobs in 10 years time. The angel industry has developed significantly over the last few years world-wide and this partnership is further evidence of the growth of the industry.”

Joe Rouse, Director of Bansea, said: “We are delighted to form this relationship with New Zealand. We have seen a fantastic angel industry developed around the incubators and Universities in New Zealand and are looking forward to helping many of the companies funded from New Zealand using Singapore as a base to grow their Asian operations.”

Many investment pitches I’ve seen recently, in fact nearly all of them, hinge on wanting some cash to break into overseas markets. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise recently released their research results into International Perceptions of New Zealand Business. The report itself is well summarised on their web site, and is easy to read.

The bottom line is that “New Zealand has a business culture that is perceived to be high in human values and low in business acumen.” While that result might give you a nice feeling that it isn’t the other way round, we lose points for our core values of “give it a go” and “she’ll be right”. While we’re experimenting in the shed with whatever works, the rest of the developed world are researching their markets, forming long-term alliances with key industry players, developing resources and doggedly executing their plan in the “survive or die” world of global business.

There’s good news though in that “there’s no need to become hard-edged or cut-throat, just come up to par [in business acumen].”

These are valuable insights for both angel investors and entrepreneurs – and there are more worthwhile learnings in the report.